Conquering fear of water

_________Jason Sugar___________ well one woman, for example, um, she, she, when she was like eleven or twelve, she had an experience in a pool. She was playing, she, so up, up until that age, she was totally fine in the water and in a swimming pool and would horse around with her friends. And then, something happened one day, where, uh, she was on the, she was on the in the deep end, standing on the bottom, and some friend was standing on her shoulders, and they would do this normally, but something happened this time, where ran out of air, and she couldn't get up, and her friends were kind of keeping her down, or, or weren't aware of what was going on, and so she, she had this experience of almost drowning. She really got very freaked out. And, um, and then, you know, that's just how it was for the, um, for the rest of her life. She's now, I think, almost forty, and, um, and, so scuba diving wasn't even on, it wasn't even about scuba diving for her, right? It, it wasn't, that wasn't on her, on her radar. And even now, we've done three sessions, uh, where she's having more and more fun in the water. Last night, ha, she, last night she was doing somersaults and handstands at the bottom of the UBC pool, where the first session, um, she just, she didn't even like the fee of the fins on her feet. Like that was, that was just to feel unstable, like out of the water, even with her face out of the water, even , it was a little bit of, um, unfamiliar. She was a little bit nervous about that, but, for her, in that first session, you know, we, we, we did the coaching, and then we, uh, got in the water, and, um, she seemed OK. She was doing fine. She was, she was up for it. And then, then she just, she kind of got a panic, she kind of, uh, she, she felt a lot of emotion arising, and I just was waiting with her, just, just was with her, and one of the, just stayed with her, held, held her arms, and just was with her while she was crying, while she let this energy that had been, you know, so many years of fear and anxiety just coming up and coming through her, and she just expressed it. And she cried, and we just, just stood there in the middle of the pool for, um, you know, a few minutes, and with our, with our gear on, and we just, just stood there, and she cried, and, um, and it was really something. You know one of the, I won't get into the process, maybe the coaching process that I use, but the, the, a key point in the process, where, uh, which is, sort of, between the discovering what's at the root, what's really at the story or the point of view, that's, that's in the way. Before we shift, before the person shifts into a new perspective, um, in creating new actions and new results, there's a point, and it could take a while, it can happen in a moment, and, eh, there's that point where they need to bring love and acceptance to what's so right now. "This is how I feel. I'm afraid. This is what I think. This is what I've been thinking for thirty years, or whatever." I, I find that being a, creating a safe space for people to just be in that place of "this is what's so. This is how I feel, and it's OK. I'm thirty-five years old, and I'm afraid to, you know, do something." Um, that's OK. And to just be that that's OK, it's one thing to say it, but, for me, I, I actually bring that being of "It's OK. You're OK, and it's OK." And then they can, then that creates a space for something else to be created. And so with, so with the, this woman, we, then we just carried on, and we went under the water, and she was swimming around, and she had a, I, I threw some little "O-Rings" for her to, kind of, it was only a few feet of water, so it's the shallow end, and she would swim around, and, and she was playing and totally forgot about her fear. Now, and then a couple sessions later, like I said, last night, she's doing somersaults in twelve feet of water, with scuba gear on,and, um, you'd never know that she was afraid, had been afraid, and now she's, now she's thinking, "OK, bring on the ocean." So, so it's, yeah. It, it, it's, ha, it's so awesome.